A variety of water turbine designs suitable for harnessing the power of moving water are known in the art. These designs include turbines which have a plurality of circumferentially spaced turbine blades each extending continuously for substantially the full length of the turbine rotor and radially outwardly therefrom. As well, they include turbines which have sets of turbine blades which are longitudinally spaced from each other along a turbine shaft. Within each set, a plurality of circumferentially spaced blades extend radially outward from the shaft. Examples of the latter kind of turbines may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,834,853 granted Nov. 10, 1998 (Ruiz et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,909 granted Sep. 7, 1999 (Szpur).
However, such designs do not provide for an enhanced flow of water current over the turbine blades, and a consequent improvement in power output. Nor do they provide supporting structures which are well adapted for movement in a body water and which may be configured to further enhance the flow of water current over the blades. Further, the structures which they do provide cannot be arrayed in any cooperative way.